All The White Horses
by Phyrefly
Summary: (Tala-centric with a sidedish of TalaKai) Tala remembers winter with his father, he remembers winter at the Abbey. Reflections on survival, because living without pain isn't really living at all.


**A/N -** OK, so for the third time I'm going to attempt this. It started off called Winter (which, incidentally, is the actual name of this song by Tori Amos) and then I changed it because I liked this title better. It's been fixed multiple times so I truly apologize for any errors this time.  
  
I highly advise you to read the lyrics if you want to get the feel. It's even better if you have heard or are listening to the song, but I'll leave that up to you. And I remind you, _third time _I'm attempting this so here's hoping _somebody _reads and reviews. Oye.  
  
_**All The White Horses  
  
**  
Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens  
Wipe my nose, get my new boots on  
I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter  
I put my hand in my father's glove  
__  
  
_Tala closed his eyes as the snow fell all around him. It landed in clumps on his fire-red hair and skittered down his arms and face. With it came crisp breezes, darker nights, long-ignored memories. The first two he could deal with, he'd lived here forever and they were commonplace by now, but the last one he always had some trouble with. Not that he'd admit it, even to himself.

It brought him back to when he was young, just a little boy with a bright smile and messy hair. A little boy whos _world_ was his father, who knew nothing about life except how to tell if the snow was packy or fluffy and that only the packy kind was good for making snowmen and having snowball fights. A little boy who was never cold because he had his snowsuit and his mittens, boots, and scarf. Just a little boy.

He remembered when he would go outside with his father. They'd always lived in Russia and winter had always been Tala's favourite season. Partially to be different, because no one else loved winter, but mostly because it was when his father would take days off from his busy schedule and go for walks with the young Tala, when he'd spin him around so he could almost, _almost_, reach out and catch the snowflakes on his mitten. In his palm. He'd always thought he had never caught them, when truthfully he'd caught many but they'd all melted.

But that was life, he'd learn later on.  
  
_I run off where the drifts get deeper  
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown  
I hear a voice "You must learn to stand up for yourself  
cause I can't always be around"_  
  
He remembers running through waves of white, falling deep in the larger banks and his father lifting him up in strong arms and placing him on a less-deep patch of snow. Then his father would run his gloved hand through Tala's bright hair and smile. A sad smile, with a touch of grief, but Tala's child eyes would never see that. He just saw white teeth and shining eyes and a loving face.

He remembers the talks too. Always taking place when they'd come inside, his father citing tiredness and being old as excuses to go in and Tala would scowl in mock annoyance even though he was just as tired but loathe admit it. They'd hang up their wet suits and gloves, hats, scarves and boots. Then they'd get warm in deep sweaters and wrap themselves in cottony blankets before settling at the table with hot chocolate.

His father would wrap his large hands around his mug and tell Tala to be strong. Tell him life lessons and lessons about love and how even when they argued now (or when they'd argue in the future, when Tala would become a know-it-all teenager, he joked) he'd _always_ love him. He'd tell him that he needed to be strong, stand up for himself, not let anyone push him around. But that he also needed to be compassionate with others, to understand and empathize.

He needed to live.  
  
_He says when you gonna make up your mind  
When you gonna love you as much as I do  
When you gonna make up your mind  
Cause things are gonna change so fast  
All the white horses are still in bed  
I tell you that I'll always want you near  
You say that things change my dear  
_  
  
Tala would blush, always. Even if it was so hot in the room and in his blankets and sweaters that he was sweating. He'd get a bit nervous when his dad started those talks, not because he could tell that his father was hinting at something forboding, that his father was trying to prepare him for a future that contained no parent. Just because he could practically taste the tension in the room and the darkness that accompanied the words.

His dad would go on, however. Seemingly oblivious to the young redhead shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He would talk about all sorts of things, sometimes getting Tala to chime in. He'd talk about how things would change, how change was inevitable, how he loved Tala so much that it _hurt_ sometimes to think about the future.

Tala would laugh, maybe. Not always though. As he got older he started to understand that his dad was serious, but when he was younger it was the only way to relieve the tension that seemed to hush every noise from the room and beyond. The young boy would tell him not to talk like that, that he'd always be around. That he _had_ to be around because what would Tala do without him? His father would shake his head, sad smile etched on his features.

It made Tala ache.  
  
_Boys get discovered as winter melts  
Flowers competing for the sun  
Years go by and I'm here still waiting  
Withering where some snowman was_  
  
And then everything changed. He ended up at the Abbey. His father ended up in a coffin, buried three feet below the surface. Surrounded by decay and fallen tears and decomposing leaves. And Tala, Tala wasn't a little boy anymore. He learned how to breathe, how to survive, how to love. And they were all terrible and hurtful and made him cry _so many times_. Until he learned how not to cry, that is. Until he learned how to breathe without living, how to survive without getting by, how to love without truly giving his heart. And it was terrible, he learned later on. But at the time it didn't seem that bad at all. It taught him how to live without pain. Which wasn't really living at all.

He met Kai there, though. And Kai was all intense eyes, stoic features, and rare smiles. He was so like Tala and so different. He taught the redhead all that he needed to learn, and then ended up unteaching it to him when they got older. He was his lifeline, his passion, his sheer need to wake up in the morning and hate to go to sleep at night.

He'd like to think he was the same to Kai, but there were differences. Tala had his memories, few and far between as they were. And when Kai left later he felt betrayed but he accepted it with his own twisted brand of logic. Now Kai would get memories. And when he came back, which he would (Tala knew, they were two parts of a whole after all) they'd both have memories they could share like candy.

The funny thing was, Tala couldn't even remember what candy tasted like.  
  
_Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace  
but I only can see myself  
Skating around the truth who I am  
but I know, dad, the ice is getting thin_  
  
Tala would search for hours in the mirror, on cold nights with snowflakes scattered on the glass of his barred window, for himself. Or for the child that loved his father and kissed the window in the hopes of tasting a raindrop, who danced in the cold one day for so many hours he came inside with blue lips and proclaimed that now he was the ice king. Who would later find out how true that was.

Somedays he'd spend his time just sitting on top of the bedsheet, thin and worn, and watching Kai sleep without really seeing him. He'd see his memories all laid out in plain view and he'd cherish them and vow to protect them so fiercely that only those truly special would be able to lay a hand on them. Because those days, in that place, they tried to break you. They tried to steal all that you were, all your memories and hopes and little pleasures, and they tried to turn you into a plastic monster.

At those times he would remember the talks with pleasure and relive every little moment. And sometimes, just sometimes because the conditions had to be perfect, he'd speak to his father. He'd be tired and the snowflakes would be falling just right and he'd be in that weird mood where he was restless and content and anxious and grieving all in one. And that didn't come very much. But when it did, Tala would talk to his dad as if he were right there. He'd cry at times, scream at others, and whisper for the majority. He'd tell his father how scared he was, how he felt like he was going to be falling. How the ice was melting and he didn't know what to do because he was stuck on a frozen lake. How he wanted to die _so fucking bad._

But he was too scared.  
  
_When you gonna make up your mind  
When you gonna love you as much as I do  
When you gonna make up your mind  
Cause things are gonna change so fast  
All the white horses are still in bed  
I tell you that I'll always want you near  
You say that things change my dear_  
  
And those were the nights that he and Kai would be vicious with each other. The biting and the clawing and the possession drove them like animals. There would be heat and passion and daring and just _anything_ they could find to get rid of the madness that plagued them. The madness that was forced upon the boys by _them. _The unspeakables.

Tala began to realize just how much he hated himself. Just how much he couldn't stand to be near other people. Those were the times he'd speak to Kai, but it wasn't like it sounded. He would've been yelling if they hadn't been trained to be in constant fear of losing their lives. Because the tension gets too much, and the constant need to be paranoid just to survive (because this isn't living, this couldn't be living) drove you to do things so _stupid_ you wonder if you really are breathing at all. Because sometimes you just couldn't believe that you really _are_ living in hell.

And you're never going to get out.  
  
_Hair is grey and the fires are burning  
So many dreams on the shelf  
You say I wanted you to be proud of me  
I always wanted that myself..._  
  
And those times, when he'd pushed Kai so far away that neither of them could bear to hear the other's heartbeat, those times were the ones when he'd remember the most special part of his fathers conversations. The deepest part of the ocean of thoughts that they'd ever swum into before returning to the shallow section, afraid of drowning.

He'd tell the young boy about his dreams. About how he'd never reached them. His father would go slightly crazy then, his eyes shimmering differently than when he'd pulled him out of the snow drift, manically almost. Those were the times when Tala was somewhat afraid of his father. When later on Tala would wonder if he really _was_ crazy since surely insanity ran in the family... and if that were true... The memories of that portion of his father's talks would fuel his frightened mind for hours past midnight with questions that couldn't be answered, answers that couldn't be acknowledged.

His father would tell him how proud he was. Of how he wanted to kill himself sometimes, because he almost couldn't bear to love someone as much as he loved Tala. He'd tell him that all his dreams, in the white and the purity, had been washed away and that he wanted Tala to never let that happen. But sometimes, secretly, he wished that Tala ended up as miserable as him. Misery loves company, after all.

Even if the company is your own son.  
  
_When you gonna make up your mind  
When you gonna love you as much as I do  
When you gonna make up your mind  
Cause things are gonna change so fast  
All the white horses have gone ahead  
I tell you that I'll always want you near  
You say that things change my dear_  
  
And when Kai was in one of his brighter moods (one of the times when he'd actually survived the training course without a whip mark on his back or a throbbing headache, when he'd gotten away from the day with little more than fifteen stiches and black and blue hips) Tala would refuse to let him keep it. Bright moods were meant for happy people with little problems. And that could never be Kai and him.

He'd tell Kai that he loved him, tell the blue and silver haired boy how much he cared for him which made Kai smile. One of those rare smiles that lit up Tala's frozen heart and made the ice melt just the tiniest of bits. But never enough. It's never enough. And Kai would reach over to hug Tala and to melt into the comforting embrace of those who have been through everything _except_ good times, together.

But Tala would pull away. Tell him that things would _change_, and though he loved Kai now it would never last. It couldn't and they both knew it. They were trained, isolated, and beaten to eliminate emotions. And he told Kai that. Told him that things would _change_ and with horror Tala realized he said the sentence (same one that his father had used so many years ago) with the same sad, grieving smile. With the same emphasis on the word as if Kai could never understand what Tala knew. And the whiteness and purity of dreams and fantasy had never even evolved into the racing horses that would challenge reality.

Tala knew just how bad _change_ was.  
  
_Never change_  
  
So as Tala waited outside his new house, with a perfect view of trees and dirty grey buildings from the back window, he remembered that today was the anniversary of the day he'd left it all behind. The day when he'd taken up stock with emotions- to an extent. The day whe he'd ridden himself of the burdens of that his father had smothered him with when he'd died.

Kai closed the door behind him with a creak and rubbed his gloved hands together while looking at Tala's back who was staring fixedly at the white sky and ground merged together. With a shiver Kai walked up to the other Russian and nuzzled his cold neck before the redhead took the gloved hand in his own mitten.

With a smile that consisted of more smirk than smile Tala lead Kai to the sidewalk for their routine walk. It was one of the things Tala couldn't give up, even if the talks that followed no longer started with the words of children, even if the room wasn't full of forboding. He knew he'd left some things behind that couldn't be regained. His father, easy emotions that weren't forced, simple smiles. His dreams. But he'd live, and he figured he really meant it this time. He'd live with pain, and reality.  
  
But nothing more then that.  
  
_All the white horses_  
  
_Fini_  
  
So what did you think? I'd love a review or e-mail or anything. I'm working on a story, I have a great plot bunny that absolutely seems to love me, but the problem is that now school's started and I don't know how often I can update. So that's why I haven't posted the first chapter yet. This story just came to me when I was listening to the song.

It's so gorgeous (the song) that I suggest you all listen to it. Now. Its called Winter by Tori Amos (who is a goddess, soo so talented). I suppose that's all.

Thanks so much to all the reviewers of Passenger, my other song fic. I'm so so so grateful!

Love. Phyrefly.


End file.
